historical impact
- noun
- /hɪˈstɔrɪkəl ˈɪmpækt/
- Many historians agree that the historical impact of the Industrial Revolution shaped modern society.
Examples
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Compared with the world's other long-time civilizations, Northern America is relatively young without much historical impact.
Academic text (1996) -
Michelangelo was slightly more conscious of his work's historical impact than Masaccio was.
Academic text (2011) -
The following seven items are addressed in order of historical impact, with the first three being critical to achieving an acceptable level of technical harmony within a unified system.
Academic text (2017) -
For example, Jewish parochial schools could be coerced by federal secularist policies to alter teaching on the historical impact of the Holocaust or the historical foundation of the modern state of Israel.
Blog text (28) -
Like Siu, he made no attempt to explore the historical impact of sojourning upon Chinese female immigration, but concentrated on cultural mores that undergirded the preeminence of temporary emigrants.
Academic text (1992) -
The historical impact of the invention of the printing press changed how knowledge was shared across Europe.
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The historical impact of the civil rights movement is still felt today in legislation and social norms.
Synonyms
A strong effect on people, places, or things
A large effect that causes an important change
How important something from the past is for later events or ideas
How Significant
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'historical' (pertaining to past events) with 'impact' (a significant effect), so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer that it refers to an effect on history. This adjective + noun compositional pattern is cross-linguistically common (e.g., Spanish 'impacto histórico', French 'impact historique'), reinforcing its predictability.
Etymology
Historical impact is like a stone thrown into a pond: the splash is the event and the spreading ripples are the impact on later events. So it means the 'lasting effect' something has on history.